MIT Department of Economics : Faculty and Staff : Faculty and Staff

Faculty and Staff

In the News: Recent Research

Universal Child Care, Maternal Labor Supply, and Family Well-Being
Jonathan Gruber, Michael Baker, and Kevin Milligan, Journal of Political Economy, August 2008.

Does Hazardous Waste Matter? Evidence From The Housing Market And The Superfund Program
Michael Greenstone and Justin Gallagher, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2008.

What Happens When Wal-Mart Comes to Town: An Empirical Analysis of the Discount Industry
Panle Jia, forthcoming, Econometrica.

Inefficient Credit Booms
Guido Lorenzoni, forthcoming, Review of Economic Studies.

Liquidity and Insurance for the Unemployed
Ivan Werning and Robert Shimer, forthcoming, American Economic Review.

Leveling the Playing Field: Sincere and Sophisticated Players in the Boston Mechanism
Parag A. Pathak and Tayfun Sönmez, American Economic Review, September 2008.

An Equilibrium Model of Global Imbalances and Low Interest Rates
Ricardo Caballero, Emmanuel Farhi, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, American Economic Review, March 2008.

Does Job Testing Harm Minority Workers? Evidence from Retail Establishments.
David Autor and David Scarborough Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 2008.

Department Faculty

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Daron Acemoglu
Ph.D., London School of Economics
Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics
Research Interests: Human capital; wage inequality; unemployment; search theory; economic growth.

George-Marios Angeletos
Ph.D., Harvard University
Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Heterogeneous information and expectations; global games; self-fulfilling crises; business cycles; incomplete markets; fiscal and monetary policy.

Joshua Angrist
Ph.D., Princeton University
Ford Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Human capital, schooling, and the economics of the family; applied econometrics; evaluation research methodology; program and policy evaluation.

David Autor
Ph.D., Harvard University
Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Human capital, skills training, and earnings inequality; "Contingent" and flexible work arrangements; Labor market impacts of technological change; Consequences of employment protection.

Abhijit Banerjee
Ph.D., Harvard University
Ford International Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Economic development, income distribution, evolutionary games, "herd behavior" in financial and other markets, a theory of misgovernance.

Olivier J. Blanchard
Ph.D., MIT
Class of 1941 Professor of Economics - On Leave
Research Interests: Transition in Eastern Europe. Unemployment in Western Europe. Self-fulfilling macroeconomic crises. Fiscal policy.

Ricardo Caballero, Department Head
Ph.D., MIT
Ford International Professor of Economics, Macroeconomics and International Finance
Research Interests: Frictions in financial and labor markets, emerging markets, incomplete markets and insurance, speculative bubbles, restructuring, investment.

Victor Chernozhukov
Ph.D., Stanford University
Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Econometric theory; Financial econometrics.

Arnaud Costinot
Ph.D. Princeton
Assistant Professor of Economics
Research Interests: International Trade.

Peter Diamond
Ph.D., MIT
Institute Professor and Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Social insurance, especially U.S. Social Security, the interface between psychology and economics.

Esther Duflo
Ph.D., MIT
Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics
Research Interests: Human resources in developing countries; educational choice; returns to education in Indonesia; nutrition in South Africa; industrial organization in developing countries; reputation effects; credit constraints.

Glenn Ellison, Associate Department Head
Ph.D., MIT
Gregory K. Palm (1970) Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Game theory, industrial organization, learning, large population and spatial models, technology adoption, geographic concentration of industries, mutual funds.

Sara F. Ellison
Ph.D., MIT
Senior Lecturer in Economics
Research Interests: Industrial organization, applied econometrics, political economy, pharmaceuticals, e-commerce, event study methodology.

Amy Finkelstein
Ph.D., MIT
Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Public Finance, Health Economics, Industrial Organization.

Robert Gibbons
Ph.D., Stanford University
Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management and Economics
Research Interests: Organizational design and performance, relational contracts within and between firms, human resource management.

Mikhail Golosov
Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Rudi Dornbusch Career Development Associate Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Macroeconomics, Incomplete Markets, Social Insurance.

Michael Greenstone
Ph.D., Princeton
3M Professor of Environmental Economics, Public Economics, Labor Economics
Research Interests: Impacts of environmental regulation; valuation of clean air; economics costs of climate change; regulation of financial market; infant health.

Jonathan Gruber
Ph.D., Harvard
Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Access to health care and health care outcomes; the market for, and the effects of employer-provided health insurance; the impact of Social Security systems on retirement decisions; economic analysis of risky behaviors by youth, particularly smoking.

Jeffrey Harris
M.D., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Economics of the tobacco industry; Economics of AIDS.

Jerry Hausman
D.Phil., Oxford
John and Jennie S. MacDonald Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Econometric studies in public finance, financial economics, and telecommunications, research in use of flexible specifications for econometric models.

Bengt Holmström
Ph.D., Stanford
Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Contracting, incentives, theory of organization, corporate finance.

Panle Jia
Ph.D., Yale
Assistant Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Industrial organization, applied econometrics, applied microeconomics.

Paul Joskow
Ph.D., Yale
Elizabeth & James Killian Professor of Economics and Management - On Leave
Research Interests: Regulatory and structural reform in the electricity sector, economic performance of emission permit trading systems, privatization in developing countries, the political economy of deregulation.

Guido Lorenzoni
Ph.D., MIT
Pentti J.K. Kouri Career Development Assistant Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Business cycles, financial market frictions, international capital markets and crises.

Anna Mikusheva
Ph.D., Harvard
Castle-Krob Career Development Assistant Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Econometric Theory, Time Series Econometrics.

Whitney Newey
Ph.D., MIT
Jane Berkowitz Carlton and Dennis William Carton Professor of Microeconomics
Research Interests: Theoretical and applied econometrics, improved approximations for inference, especially bootstrapping, and semiparametric models, efficient bootstrapping, choosing the number of instrumental variables, and nonparametric estimation of models with nonlinear budget sets, with applications to labor supply.

Benjamin Olken
Ph.D. Harvard
Associate Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Political economy of developing countries.

Parag Pathak
Ph.D. Harvard
Assistant Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Market-mechanism design; game theory; local public finance and education; financial markets.

Michael J. Piore
Ph.D., Harvard
David W. Skinner Professor of Political Economy
Research Interests: The response of business organizations, trade unions, and government to the growing decentralization which they perceive as a response to changing technology.

James M. Poterba
D.Phil., Oxford
Mitsui Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Economics of taxation and government spending programs; taxation and personal financial behavior; household portfolio behavior.

Drazen Prelec
Ph.D., Harvard
Digital Equipment Corporation LFM Professor of Management, Management Science and Economics
Research Interests: Psychology, Decision Theory, Behavioral Economics, Neuroeconomics.

Nancy Rose
Ph.D., MIT
Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Firm behavior and industry performance, the impact of government regulation, executive compensation.

Stephen Ross
Ph.D., Harvard
Franco Modigliani Professor of Finance and Economics
Research Interests: Economics of uncertainty, corporate finance, decision theory and financial econometrics.

Stephen P. Ryan
Ph.D., Duke
Silverman 1968 Family Career Development Assistant Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Industrial Organization, Finance, Econometrics.

Richard Schmalensee
Ph.D., MIT
Gordon Y Billard Professor of Management and Economics
Research Interests: Industrial organization, microeconomics, antitrust and government regulation, energy and environmental economics and policy, implications for management decisions, public policy, and government/business relations.

James M. Snyder
Ph.D., Cal. Tech.
Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Economics
Research Interests: Empirical and theoretical studies of campaign finance in U.S. Congressional elections and U.S. state elections. Models of electoral competition between political parties. Empirical studies of issue positions and the incumbency advantage in U.S. Congressional elections.

Peter Temin
Ph.D., MIT
Elisha Gray II Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Inter-war and post-World War Two periods in the United States, Europe, and Russia, telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries. Defense of indirect democracy, rational debate leads to one-dimensional conflict, credit markets and information transmission.

Lester Thurow
Ph.D., Harvard
Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Professor of Management and Economics
Research Interests: China, human resource management, Japan, oil industry, Pakistan, retailing, telecommunications industry.

Robert Townsend
Ph.D. Minnesota
Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Theory including the revelation principle, costly state verification, optimal multiperiod contracts, decentralization with private information, money with spatially separated agents, and financial structure and growth.

Iván Werning
Ph.D., University of Chicago
Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Macroeconomics, Public Economics, Applications of Dynamic Contracts, Optimal Taxation, Monetary Policy, Unemployment Insurance Design.

William Wheaton
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Professor of Economics and Urban Studies and Director of Research, Center for Real Estate
Research Interests: Studying the efficiency of urban land markets in the matching of buyers and sellers, and the location decisions of jobs and residences. Also examining the cyclic behavior of real estate, the economic competition between regions for economic growth, and the provision of state and local public services.

Muhamet Yildiz
Ph.D., Stanford
Associate Professor of Economics
Research Interests: Game theory; Bargaining.

In Memoriam

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E. Cary Brown
Ph.D., Harvard
Professor of Economics, Emeritus

Rudiger Dornbusch
Ph.D., Chicago
Ford International Professor, International Economics

Charles P. Kindleberger
Ph.D., Columbia
Ford International Professor of Economics, Emeritus

Franco Modigliani
D. Jur.,Rome and D. Soc. Sci., New School of Research
Institute Professor Emeritus; Professor of Finance & Economics

Affiliated Faculty

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Mathias Dewatripont
Ph.D., Harvard
Annual Visiting Professor

Ernst Fehr
Ph.D., University of Vienna
Annual Visiting Professor

Jean Tirole
Ph.D., MIT
Annual Visiting Professor

Associated Teaching Faculty

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Suzanne Berger
Ph.D., Harvard
Raphael Dorman and Helen Starbuck Professor of Political Science, MIT Department of Political Science.

Ernst Berndt
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin
Louis B. Seley Professor of Applied Economics, MIT Sloan School of Management.

Leonid Kogan
Ph.D., MIT
Associate Professor of Finance, MIT Sloan School of Management.

Frank Levy
Ph.D., Yale
Daniel Rose Professor of Urban Economics.

Andrew Lo
Ph.D., Harvard
Harris and Harris Group Professor; Professor of Finance, MIT Sloan School of Management.

Anne McCants
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Professor of History, MIT Department of History.

Stewart C. Myers
Ph.D., Stanford
Robert C. Merton (1970) Professor of Financial Economics , MIT Sloan School of Management.

Roberto Rigobon
Ph.D., MIT
Associate Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management.

Antoinette Schoar
Ph.D., Chicago
Michael M. Koerner (1949) Professsor of Entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan School of Management.

Jiang Wang
Ph.D., Pennsylvania
Mizuho Financial Group Professor; MIT Sloan School of Management

Professors Emeriti

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Morris Adelman
Ph.D., Harvard
Professor of Economics, Emeritus

Sidney S. Alexander
Ph.D., Harvard
Professor of Economics and Management, Emeritus

Robert L. Bishop
Ph.D., Harvard
Professor of Economics, Emeritus

Richard S. Eckaus
Ph.D., MIT
Ford International Professor of Economics, Emeritus
eckaus@mit.edu

Franklin M. Fisher
Ph.D. Harvard
Jane Berkowitz Carlton and Dennis William Carlton Professor of Microeconomics, Emeritus

Jerome Rothenberg
Ph.D., Columbia
Professor of Economics, Emeritus

Paul A. Samuelson
Ph.D., Harvard
Institute Professor, Emeritus; Professor of Economics, Emeritus; Gordon Y. Billard Fellow

Abraham J. Seigel
Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley
Howard W. Johnson Professor of Management, Emeritus

Robert M. Solow
Ph.D., Harvard
Institute Professor, Emeritus; Professor of Economics, Emeritus

Visiting Faculty

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James Anderson, PhD
Visiting Professor of Economics
Spring 2009

Nick Bloom, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics
Fall 2008

Courtney Coile, PhD
Visiting Associate Professor of Economics
Spring 2009

Lucas Davis, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics
Academic Year 2008-2009

Mathias Dewatripont, PhD
Visiting Professor of Economics
Spring 2009

Peter Eso, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics
Academic Year 2008-2009

Ernst Fehr, PhD
Visiting Professor of Economics
Fall 2008

Francesco Giavazzi, PhD
Visiting Professor of Economics
Spring 2009

Lorenz Goette, PhD
Visiting Associate Professor of Economics
Spring 2009

Kiminori Matsuyama, PhD
Visiting Professor of Economics
Spring 2009

Casey Rothschild, PhD
Visiting Assistant Profesor of Economics
Academic Year 2008-2009

Robert Shimer, PhD
Visiting Professor of Economics
Fall 2008

Jean Tirole, PhD
Visiting Professor of Economics
Fall 2008

Robert Triest, PhD
Visiting Professor of Economics
Spring 2009

Paul Willen, PhD
Visiting Associate Professor of Economics
Fall 2008

Staff

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Mark Begley
Systems Analyst

Peter Hoagland
Graduate Program Administrator

Gary King
Undergraduate Program Administrator

Mark Leary
Systems Manager

Lisa DesForge
Administrative Officer

Loida Morales
Financial Coordinator

Support Staff

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John Arditi
Administrative Assistant
Professors Angeletos, Blanchard, Caballero, Diamond and Poterba

Theresa Benevento
Administrative Assistant
Professors S. Ellison, Fisher, Jia, Joskow, Olken, and Rose

Pat Burnett
Office Assistant
Department Assistant

Jessica Colón
Senior Administrative Assistant
Department Head and Administrative Officer

Lauren Fahey
Administrative Assistant
Professors Acemoglu and Autor

Emily Gallagher
Administrative Assistant
Professors Chernozhukov, Mikusheva, Newey, Temin, and Tirole

Cherisse Haakonsen
Administrative Assistant
Professors Dewatripont, G. Ellison, Fehr, Finkelstein, Pathak and Ryan

Tosha Hairston
Administrative Assistant
Professors Banerjee and Duflo

Deborah Jamiol
Administrative Assistant
Professors Davis, Greenstone, Holmström, Piore and Willen

Administrative Assistant
Administrative Assistant
Professors Bloom, Costinot, Golosov, Harris

Mary R. Meehan
Office Assistant
Department Assistant

Janice Murray
Administrative Assistant
Professors Samuelson and Solow

Malinda Nicolosi
Administrative Assistant
Professors Angrist, Eso, Gruber, and Shimer

Caitlin Pike
Assistant to the Graduate Administrator

Kim Scantlebury
Administrative Assistant
Professors Eckaus, Hausman, Lorenzoni, Rothschild, Wheaton, and Yildiz

Linda Woodbury
Administrative Assistant
Professors Townsend nd Werning

	Daron Acemoglu Ph.D., London School of Economics Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics Research Interests: Human capital; wage inequality; unemployment; search theory; economic growth.
	George-Marios Angeletos Ph.D., Harvard University Professor of Economics Research Interests: Heterogeneous information and expectations; global games; self-fulfilling crises; business cycles; incomplete markets; fiscal and monetary policy.
	Joshua Angrist Ph.D., Princeton University Ford Professor of Economics Research Interests: Human capital, schooling, and the economics of the family; applied econometrics; evaluation research methodology; program and policy evaluation.
	David Autor Ph.D., Harvard University Professor of Economics Research Interests: Human capital, skills training, and earnings inequality; "Contingent" and flexible work arrangements; Labor market impacts of technological change; Consequences of employment protection.
	Abhijit Banerjee Ph.D., Harvard University Ford International Professor of Economics Research Interests: Economic development, income distribution, evolutionary games, "herd behavior" in financial and other markets, a theory of misgovernance.
	Olivier J. Blanchard Ph.D., MIT Class of 1941 Professor of Economics - On Leave Research Interests: Transition in Eastern Europe. Unemployment in Western Europe. Self-fulfilling macroeconomic crises. Fiscal policy.
	Ricardo Caballero, Department Head Ph.D., MIT Ford International Professor of Economics, Macroeconomics and International Finance Research Interests: Frictions in financial and labor markets, emerging markets, incomplete markets and insurance, speculative bubbles, restructuring, investment.
	Victor Chernozhukov Ph.D., Stanford University Professor of Economics Research Interests: Econometric theory; Financial econometrics.
	Arnaud Costinot Ph.D. Princeton Assistant Professor of Economics Research Interests: International Trade.
	Peter Diamond Ph.D., MIT Institute Professor and Professor of Economics Research Interests: Social insurance, especially U.S. Social Security, the interface between psychology and economics.
	Esther Duflo Ph.D., MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics Research Interests: Human resources in developing countries; educational choice; returns to education in Indonesia; nutrition in South Africa; industrial organization in developing countries; reputation effects; credit constraints.
	Glenn Ellison, Associate Department Head Ph.D., MIT Gregory K. Palm (1970) Professor of Economics Research Interests: Game theory, industrial organization, learning, large population and spatial models, technology adoption, geographic concentration of industries, mutual funds.
	Sara F. Ellison Ph.D., MIT Senior Lecturer in Economics Research Interests: Industrial organization, applied econometrics, political economy, pharmaceuticals, e-commerce, event study methodology.
	Amy Finkelstein Ph.D., MIT Professor of Economics Research Interests: Public Finance, Health Economics, Industrial Organization.
	Robert Gibbons Ph.D., Stanford University Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management and Economics Research Interests: Organizational design and performance, relational contracts within and between firms, human resource management.
	Mikhail Golosov Ph.D., University of Minnesota Rudi Dornbusch Career Development Associate Professor of Economics Research Interests: Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Macroeconomics, Incomplete Markets, Social Insurance.
	Michael Greenstone Ph.D., Princeton 3M Professor of Environmental Economics, Public Economics, Labor Economics Research Interests: Impacts of environmental regulation; valuation of clean air; economics costs of climate change; regulation of financial market; infant health.
	Jonathan Gruber Ph.D., Harvard Professor of Economics Research Interests: Access to health care and health care outcomes; the market for, and the effects of employer-provided health insurance; the impact of Social Security systems on retirement decisions; economic analysis of risky behaviors by youth, particularly smoking.
	Jeffrey Harris M.D., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania Professor of Economics Research Interests: Economics of the tobacco industry; Economics of AIDS.
	Jerry Hausman D.Phil., Oxford John and Jennie S. MacDonald Professor of Economics Research Interests: Econometric studies in public finance, financial economics, and telecommunications, research in use of flexible specifications for econometric models.
	Bengt Holmström Ph.D., Stanford Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics Research Interests: Contracting, incentives, theory of organization, corporate finance.
	Panle Jia Ph.D., Yale Assistant Professor of Economics Research Interests: Industrial organization, applied econometrics, applied microeconomics.
	Paul Joskow Ph.D., Yale Elizabeth & James Killian Professor of Economics and Management - On Leave Research Interests: Regulatory and structural reform in the electricity sector, economic performance of emission permit trading systems, privatization in developing countries, the political economy of deregulation.
	Guido Lorenzoni Ph.D., MIT Pentti J.K. Kouri Career Development Assistant Professor of Economics Research Interests: Business cycles, financial market frictions, international capital markets and crises.
	Anna Mikusheva Ph.D., Harvard Castle-Krob Career Development Assistant Professor of Economics Research Interests: Econometric Theory, Time Series Econometrics.
	Whitney Newey Ph.D., MIT Jane Berkowitz Carlton and Dennis William Carton Professor of Microeconomics Research Interests: Theoretical and applied econometrics, improved approximations for inference, especially bootstrapping, and semiparametric models, efficient bootstrapping, choosing the number of instrumental variables, and nonparametric estimation of models with nonlinear budget sets, with applications to labor supply.
	Benjamin Olken Ph.D. Harvard Associate Professor of Economics Research Interests: Political economy of developing countries.
	Parag Pathak Ph.D. Harvard Assistant Professor of Economics Research Interests: Market-mechanism design; game theory; local public finance and education; financial markets.
	Michael J. Piore Ph.D., Harvard David W. Skinner Professor of Political Economy Research Interests: The response of business organizations, trade unions, and government to the growing decentralization which they perceive as a response to changing technology.
	James M. Poterba D.Phil., Oxford Mitsui Professor of Economics Research Interests: Economics of taxation and government spending programs; taxation and personal financial behavior; household portfolio behavior.
	Drazen Prelec Ph.D., Harvard Digital Equipment Corporation LFM Professor of Management, Management Science and Economics Research Interests: Psychology, Decision Theory, Behavioral Economics, Neuroeconomics.
	Nancy Rose Ph.D., MIT Professor of Economics Research Interests: Firm behavior and industry performance, the impact of government regulation, executive compensation.
	Stephen Ross Ph.D., Harvard Franco Modigliani Professor of Finance and Economics Research Interests: Economics of uncertainty, corporate finance, decision theory and financial econometrics.
	Stephen P. Ryan Ph.D., Duke Silverman 1968 Family Career Development Assistant Professor of Economics Research Interests: Industrial Organization, Finance, Econometrics.
	Richard Schmalensee Ph.D., MIT Gordon Y Billard Professor of Management and Economics Research Interests: Industrial organization, microeconomics, antitrust and government regulation, energy and environmental economics and policy, implications for management decisions, public policy, and government/business relations.
	James M. Snyder Ph.D., Cal. Tech. Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Economics Research Interests: Empirical and theoretical studies of campaign finance in U.S. Congressional elections and U.S. state elections. Models of electoral competition between political parties. Empirical studies of issue positions and the incumbency advantage in U.S. Congressional elections.
	Peter Temin Ph.D., MIT Elisha Gray II Professor of Economics Research Interests: Inter-war and post-World War Two periods in the United States, Europe, and Russia, telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries. Defense of indirect democracy, rational debate leads to one-dimensional conflict, credit markets and information transmission.
	Lester Thurow Ph.D., Harvard Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Professor of Management and Economics Research Interests: China, human resource management, Japan, oil industry, Pakistan, retailing, telecommunications industry.
	Robert Townsend Ph.D. Minnesota Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics Research Interests: Theory including the revelation principle, costly state verification, optimal multiperiod contracts, decentralization with private information, money with spatially separated agents, and financial structure and growth.
	Iván Werning Ph.D., University of Chicago Professor of Economics Research Interests: Macroeconomics, Public Economics, Applications of Dynamic Contracts, Optimal Taxation, Monetary Policy, Unemployment Insurance Design.
	William Wheaton Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania Professor of Economics and Urban Studies and Director of Research, Center for Real Estate Research Interests: Studying the efficiency of urban land markets in the matching of buyers and sellers, and the location decisions of jobs and residences. Also examining the cyclic behavior of real estate, the economic competition between regions for economic growth, and the provision of state and local public services.
	Muhamet Yildiz Ph.D., Stanford Associate Professor of Economics Research Interests: Game theory; Bargaining.